Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

05/05 Links Pt1: Matti Friedman on the Breaking the Silence report; The Facts on the Security Fence

From Ian:

IDF Blog: Setting the Facts Straight on the Security Fence

The security fence serves one purpose and one purpose only: to prevent terrorists from carrying out deadly attacks on Israeli civilians. Since the construction of the fence began, there has been a significant decrease in the number of attacks originating in Judea and Samaria.
During the Second Intifada (2000-2005), terrorists from Judea and Samaria executed horrific attacks including shootings, suicide attacks, and bombings. The violence proved to be most fatal between 2001 and 2004, when 984 Israelis were murdered. As a direct response to the attacks, the IDF began construction of the security fence.
The security fence proved to be a highly effective measure for reducing terror attacks. The graphs below demonstrate how terror has decreased since its construction.
1. The security fence has reduced suicide attacks to zero.
2. Just 5% of the security fence is made of concrete. The concrete areas, which are built near roads to prevent shooting attacks, have proven very effective.

Matti Friedman on the Breaking the Silence report

3. Breaking the Silence is described as an organization of Israeli veterans trying to expose Israelis to the nature of service in the occupied territories, in order to have a political impact on Israeli society. That's what it was a long time ago, and it once had an important role to play. But now it's something else. Today, like B’Tselem and others, it's a group funded in large part by European money which serves mainly to provide international reporters with the lurid examples of Israeli malfeasance that they crave. They are not speaking to Israelis, but are rather exploiting Israelis' uniquely talkative and transparent nature in order to defame them.
There is actually a fairly straightforward solution to this problem. Any group genuinely fighting for the character of Israeli society should do so in Hebrew, which is the language that Israelis speak. If you're expending a great deal of energy and money translating your materials into English and speaking to foreign reporters, as we’re seeing Breaking the Silence do right now, I think it's fair to ask what, exactly, you're up to. How is speaking to the international press supposed to swing Israelis in your direction? Of course it has the opposite effect.
As long as this state of affairs continues, Israelis will be correct in identifying this group and its sister organizations as people paid by foreigners to say things that a lot of foreigners want to hear Israelis say. And Israelis will continue to live without the strong left that we need – one that comes from Israel, is part of Israel, and is concerned with bettering our society, not with posturing for an audience abroad whose hostile obsession with us has nothing to do with us at all.

NGO Monitor: Negative Testimony from ‘Breaking the Silence’ Meets Quota for Grant Makers

IDF veterans who provided negative testimony for the leftist NGO “Breaking the Silence” may not realize they are also participating in an effort by the group to fulfill a funding quota for bad stuff against Israel.
According to a report by the NGO Monitor, a number of grant-making agencies who provide funding to leftist organizations in Israel have made their patronage contingent upon the groups’ abilities to obtain a minimum number of negative “testimonies.”
“This contradicts Breaking the Silence” declarations and thus turns it into an organization that represents its foreign donors’ interest, severely damaging the NGO’s reliability and its ability to analyze complicated combat situations,” said the report.
One example is the foreign leftist Oxfam group, which signed an agreement with Breaking the Silence, according to the NGO Monitor watchdog organization.
According to that agreement, the Monitor reported, BTS was to conduct interviews with “as many” soldiers as possible who would testify regarding [Israeli] “immoral actions] that violate human rights.

An example of how twisted Palestinian Arab media are

The International Middle East Media Center is employs Palestinian Arab journalists in order to push anti-Israel propaganda in English. It is apparently associated with Alison Weir's "If Americans Knew" organization through which Americans can give tax deductible donations to IMEMC.

Here's one article that shows how incompetent and nutty these Palestinian "journalists" are:

Greater Israel is a term used, historically, to define the so-called "natural" or desired borders of Israel in the eyes of radical Israeli nationalists.

Founding father of the modern Israeli colonial movement, Theodore Herzl, described the area of the proposed Jewish state as stretching “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.” According to Rabbi Fischmann, the so-called Promised Land extends "from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates" and "includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”

Herzl did use that phrase in his diaries as a proposed negotiating position with the Ottoman Empire.

But who is "Rabbi Fischmann"?

It turns out that he was Rabbi Yehuda Leib Fishman, later known as Yehuda Leib Maimon, a founder of the Mizrachi religious Zionist movement in America. He gave testimony to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and he was answering a question from an Indian representative:

Sir ABDUR RAHMAN (India) : Rabbi Fishman, I do not know the Bible, I do not pretend to know it, but I should like to get information from you, your point of view, and I hope you will enlighten me as to what you have to say in regard to a few matters which I will put to you.

Rabbi Fishman, what was "the Promised Land"?

RABBI FISHMAN: The Promised Land was quite a large one, from the river of Egypt, up to the Euphrates.

The rabbi was answering a history question, not saying what he wanted the borders of Israel to be.

In fact, Rabbi Fishman did not even think it was realistic to have a Jewish state in all of British Mandate Palestine!

Not exactly a proponent of "Greater Israel!"

(The dual quotes of Herzl and "Rabbi Fischmann" are all over anti-Israel websites, showing that not a single anti-Israel activist bothers to check quotes before blindly copying and pasting.)

IMEMC then reveals how crazy its writers are:, and now out of touch the Arab world is to reality:

From this context, the current crisis in the Middle East, including the war on Syria and Iraq (as well as any proposed "humanitarian intervention" by Western powers) has often been perceived by geopolitical analysts to be merely a part of a process for Israeli territorial expansion, via proxy war and any number of destabilization methods affecting vital Arab interests.

Yes, the Palestinian intelligentsia believe that Jews are behind a worldwide conspiracy to foment civil wars in Syria and Iraq in order for Israel to grab those lands.

I've read this plenty of times, but it is rare to see this insanity in English.

From the World Bulletin (Turkey):

Morocco has backtracked an earlier invitation extended to the former Israeli president Shimon Peres to pop in the Kingdom to attend the Clinton Global Initiative's First Middle East and Africa Conference set to kick off on May 5 in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.

Morocco rescinded the invitation it had dispatched earlier to the notorious former Israeli PM Shimon Peres after his projected stopover stirred up a hornet's nest among the Kingdom’s pro-Palestine activists and organizations.

Earlier, on Friday, a series of protest rallies staged in observance of the International May Day also voiced firm rebuff of Peres’s stopover.

Additionally, according to new360, Hamas government agencies in Gaza had written to Moroccan officials asking that the infamous Israeli politician be blocked from entering Morocco.

The Moroccan government has not responded to any of the calls to arrest or deport Peres. It was noted on Sunday that his invitation had been rescinded and he would not be attending the conference.

ANSAMed, however, reports that Peres is the one who decided not to go:

RABAT, MAY 4 - Former Israeli president Shimon Peres will not be going to Marrakesh despite an invitation from the Clinton Foundation to speak at a conference on the Middle East and Africa. The decision was made after polemics following the announcement that he was to have taken part tomorrow.

Since the nation of Morocco isn't who invited Peres to begin with, it seems that the Turkish version of the story is not correct.

Peres is not Avigdor Lieberman. He is passionately dedicated to peace, whether you agree with him or not. Yet no one in the Arab world is coming to his defense. On the contrary - the only voices one can find in Arabic media were those calling for him to be dis-invited at the very least, and arrested and jailed should he step foot in Morocco.

Interestingly, even though the Clinton Foundation issues press releases every day, it has not mentioned this story. No regrets, no gentle scolding that it is antithetical to peace - nothing. One would think that if the Clinton Foundation is as dedicated to peace as possible, it would have done everything possible to allow Peres to attend.

Could it be because the Clinton Foundation has accepted some $40 million from Arab countries since it started? Arab countries give far more to the Clinton Foundation than to other NGOs doing similar work.

There will be no peace as long as there is no pressure on Arab governments to act in a peaceful way. If they truly wanted to see a peaceful two state solution they would welcome Shimon Peres anywhere he wanted to go.

And a strong condemnation by Bill Clinton on how Shimon Peres is treated by the Arab world would do more for peace than any number of conferences.

Survey shows European Muslims are much more antisemitic than non-Muslims (update)

A new paper was released by ISGAP, "Antisemitic Attitudes among Muslims in Europe: A Survey Review" by Günther Jikeli.

It proves that European Muslims are more antisemitic than any other group, even extreme rightists. .

Most of the data comes from a comprehensive survey in France, although other data indicates that the attitudes are the same throughout Europe.

The other major finding was that the more religious Muslims are, the more antisemitic they are:

Muslims were also far more likely to believe more antisemitic statements than non-Muslims, even on the political fringes:

It isn't only France:

In Brussels, 2,837 students in 32 Dutch-speaking high schools were polled. About half of the Muslim respondents agreed with the following statements:

(1) “Jews want to dominate everything” (total, 31.4 percent; Muslims, 56.8 percent; non-Muslims, 10.5 percent).

(2) “Most Jews think they are better than others” (total, 29.9 percent; Muslims, 47.1 percent; non-Muslims, 12.9 percent).

(3) “If you do business with Jews, you should be extra careful” (total, 28.6 percent; Muslims, 47.5 percent; non-Muslims, 12.9 percent).

(4) “Jews incite to war and blame others” (total, 28.4 percent; Muslims, 53.7 percent; non-Muslims, 7.7 percent).

The antisemitic attitudes were unrelated to low educational level or social disadvantage.
Mark Elchardus confirmed the findings two years later in 2013 with a study of 863 students from Ghent and Antwerp, including 346 Muslim students. While 45 to 50 percent of Muslim students revealed antisemitic attitudes, “only” about 10 percent of non-Muslims did so.

So many in the West want to claim that Muslims only hate Jews because of Israel. These surveys indicate that the opposite is the case: they hate Israel because they hate Jews.

And yet none of the "human rights" activists are considering going into Muslim communities to be more tolerant of Jews. Because Muslims are expected to be haters, and the "progressives" don't expect them to act any differently.

Here is a video of the author talking about the study:

Wiesenthal Center complains about incitement to Jew-hatred on Goal.com Arabic site

A month ago, I reported that Goal.com's Arabic site included anti-Israel rhetoric.

Now the Simon Wiesenthal Center has noticed:

In a letter to the UEFA (Union of European Football Association) President, Michel Platini, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, drew attention to " the constant incitement and offence against the State of Israel on the Arabic site of Goal.com, a web site that prides itself in having a global constituency of over 64 million fans".

The letter listed:

- "a classic example (see photo and caption, upper case for emphasis, reads in translation 'Saturday 28 March 2015, Sammy Ofer Stadium, Haifa, THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Wales decided to enter the 2016 UEFA Cup Finals, for the first time ever, after defeating the ZIONIST ENTITY TEAM of the City of Haifa in the OCCUPIED TERRITORIES with three straight goals). This was the first ZIONIST loss in the play-offs...'"

Samuels noted that: " 'Zionist entity' is deemed as denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel and the very right to sovereignty of the Jewish people".
See photo and Arabic caption:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLJRM-NxfkcuVZ9OSZbvW5T6wqWfj1Uzjm1Cgip10fv9IJsFFSlYlFqUxgrfQK5P6le_I6F5y1Dpx96Sz6a5B24-5D4ZnEHP6cknWh4QTy11s4qD1e7oxElkQfRdm9kmMn9l7_ng/s1600/goal1.png- "Another article celebrated how the 'OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES ZIONIST TEAMS, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Beersheba' were unable to play in the summer of 2014 due to 'Palestinian Hamas shelling'.”

Samuels added "calling Haifa, Tel Aviv and Beersheba OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, in effect deletes all of Israel from the map".

- "Another recounts how Bosnian striker, Edin Dzeko, will not participate in the UEFA Euro 2016 qualifier against 'THE ZIONIST ENEMY' in 'THE ARAB CITY OF JERUSALEM'."

The Centre argued that "this language violates Goal.com's on-line Terms of Message and Content Use which forbids any expression that is:

- 5.7.2 is threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, offensive, pornographic, profane, sexually explicit or indecent
- 5.7.3 [that] promotes violence
- 5.7.4 [that] promotes discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age
- 5.7.10 [that] will be likely to harass, upset, embarrass or alarm any other person".

The letter pointed to "an example of how far such words can reach, occurring this Friday, 1 May, when Raja Casablanca F.C. President, Mohamed Boudrika protested violence on the pitch by the Algerian Wikaf Stef team, to epithets from their Club President, Hassan Hammar, calling the Moroccan team “Jews Jews!".
See:http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/05/157477/raja-president-terrorized-algeria-algerian-police/

Samuels claimed that "multiple appeals to Goal.com London headquarters have remained unanswered," continuing, "a similar complaint to pan-European sports network, EUROSPORT, resulted in immediate action.

It will be interesting to see if Goal.com responds to this.

05/04 Links Pt2: Kemp: Media Encourage Terrorists to Use Human Shields; Halimi memorial vandalized

From Ian:

Col. Kemp: Media Encourage Terrorists to Use Human Shields in War

Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told a legal conference that the Western media have encouraged terrorists to use human shields in war by focusing attention on civilian casualties in such a way that Western military forces were effectively deterred from responding to terrorist attacks. He suggested that legal doctrines might need to be adjusted in order to remove the operational advantage human shields provide terrorists.
The West’s collective failure to innovate to confront the tactical problems posed by human shields, Kemp said, “has had the effect of making them more effective, and encouraging their use.”
“I’m not in any way advocating the unlawful slaughter of civilians on the battlefield,” Kemp added. However, there needed to be creative legal and operational thinking about how to prevent civilians from being used, willingly or unwillingly, to help terrorists win asymmetric conflicts against superior military forces, he said.
For example, the doctrine of proportionality might need to be expanded to consider overall military objectives, not just short-term objectives of specific attacks, he suggested.
The problem with focusing on specific attacks is that the calculation–weighing the military objective against the risk to civilians–would often discourage attacks against terrorist targets, which in turn would ensure that terrorist groups would use human shields again in the future.

Memorial to slain French Jew Halimi vandalized

French authorities said vandals damaged a memorial plaque honoring a young French Jewish man tortured and killed in 2006.
The incident targeting the monument to Ilan Halimi came amid heightened religious tensions in France, after radical Islamic gunmen attacked a Paris kosher market and newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement Sunday that prosecutors have opened an investigation into the damage to the monument in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Halimi’s death stunned many in France, especially in the Jewish community, Europe’s largest. Driven in part by anti-Semitism, a gang held him captive for weeks and tortured him, then left him naked and handcuffed near railroad tracks. The 23-year-old Halimi died en route to the hospital.
On Friday, French anti-Semitism watchdog group BNVCA reported that two Jewish men were attacked in Paris in the middle of the day by a pro-Palestinian gang, leaving them slightly injured.
The men, in the early 20s, were attacked by a gang of about 40 people, identified as being members of Gaza Firm, a pro-Palestinian group, and involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Jewish Group ‘Outraged’ After Plaque Honoring Paris Murder Victim Desecrated

A major Jewish group expressed shock on Sunday after vandals in Paris desecrated a plague in memory of Ilan Halimi, a French Jew who was kidnapped in 2006, tortured and ultimately killed.
“Outrage!” the American Jewish Committee (AJC) wrote on Twitter, adding, “1st they tortured & killed Ilan Halimi, a French Jew, in ’06. Now the plaque in his memory has been destroyed in a Paris suburb.”
The memorial plague was found smashed on Saturday night in Bagneux, a southern suburb of Paris, and has since been removed for repairs, according to French daily Le Figaro. The vandals have yet to be identified.
Bagneux mayor Marie-Hélène Amiable on Sunday said she was “extremely shocked” by the incident and described the vandalism as “outrageous” and “unacceptable.”

Body of Israeli hiker Asraf retrieved in Nepal

Israeli rescue teams on Monday morning retrieved the body of the 22-year-old Israeli hiker who was killed in Nepal’s devastating earthquake over a week earlier.
Or Asraf’s remains were airlifted from a remote village in the Langtang village to Kathmandu, and will be flown Tuesday to Israel.
A member of the Israeli team that found his remains, Oren Morgan, told Israel Radio that several European hikers were also killed in the area.
He said evidence collected during the search for Asraf was handed over to the UN base in Nepal in order to form a better understanding of what happened to hikers from around the world who were declared missing following the earthquake.
Asraf, 22, was the only Israeli fatality from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which flattened villages and killed over 7,000, according to Nepalese authorities.

Soldier describes how immoral Hamas is

Looking at more of the "Breaking the Silence" testimonies, here's an example where the leftist group is trying hard to pretend that the IDF is doing something immoral - but in fact it is Hamas that is trying to get the IDF to kill civilians.

There was this mentally handicapped girl in the neighborhood, apparently, and the fact that shots were fired near her feet only made her laugh (earlier in his testimony the soldier described a practice of shooting near people’s feet in order to get them to distance themselves from the forces). She would keep getting closer and it was clear to everyone that she was mentally handicapped, so no one shot at her. No one knew how to deal with this situation. She wandered around the areas of the advance guard company and some other company – I assume she just wanted to return home, I assume she ran away from her parents, I don’t think they would have sent her there. It is possible that she was being taken advantage of – perhaps it was a show, I don’t know. I thought to myself that it was a show, and I admit that I really, really wanted to shoot her in the knees because I was convinced it was one. I was sure she was being sent by Hamas to test our alertness, to test our limits, to figure out how we respond to civilians.

Later they also let loose a flock of sheep on us, seven or ten of whom had bombs tied to their bellies from below.

I don’t know if I was right or wrong, but I was convinced that this girl was a test. Eventually, enough people fired shots near her feet for her to apparently get the message that ‘OK, maybe I shouldn’t be here,’ and she turned and walked away.

The reason this happened is that earlier that day we heard about an old man who went in the direction of a house held by a different force; [the soldiers] didn’t really know what to do so they went up to him. This guy, 70 or 80 years old, turned out to be booby-trapped from head to toe. From that moment on the protocol was very, very clear: shoot toward the feet. And if they don’t go away, shoot to kill.

Here we see that the IDF soldiers held their fire even though there was a very real chance that the girl was booby-trapped, that Hamas had booby trapped sheep, and that Hamas had booby-trapped an old man.

But what is the headline that Breaking the Silence uses for this story?

“I really, really wanted to shoot her in the knees”

This shows quite clearly that BTS is not interested in showing the truth about the IDF, but that they are fishing for dirt to make it look bad.

In other cases the BTS interviewer tried very hard to get the soldier to denounce IDF's rules of engagement:

There were cases in which families were apparently killed by fighter jet strikes. How do you explain that?
A lot of houses were hit, and some of those houses were also shared by occupants aside from [Hamas] militants. I think most of the families that were hurt were in cases like Shuja’iyya, (the testifier is referring to the artillery shot in the aftermath of the event in which seven IDF soldiers were killed when their APC was hit by a rocket) where the threshold for opening fire was more lax because forces were in immediate danger.

But the forces were operating in neighborhoods that were supposed to be uninhabited.
‘Supposed to be’ is one thing, but in reality there were people in there sometimes. In the urban areas of Rafah and Khuza’a, every other house was marked as ‘active’ (being used by militants). It was a real hornet’s nest in there, and they took down those houses systematically. ‘Roof knocking’ (a method by which a small missile is fired on the roof of a building as a warning shot to its residents that it is about to be struck) followed by a boom, ‘roof knocking,’ a boom. Despite the fact that no one was ‘supposed to be’ in there.

Showing that the IDF still tried to warn residents even in areas thatthey shouldn't have been and that they were under active fire from Hamas!

But there are means of confirming that there aren’t any people [in the houses], so how did it happen that they got killed anyway?
We can’t know everything. We did everything we could in order to know. If the family had no phone and a ‘roof knocking’ was conducted, and after a few minutes no one came out, then the assumption was that there was no one there.

You were working under the assumption that once a ‘roof knocking’ was conducted everyone leaves the building immediately, and if nobody leaves it means there was no one inside?
People who are willing to sacrifice themselves, there’s nothing you can do. We have no way of knowing if there were people in there who decided not to get out.

But the bomb was dropped on the house?
Yes.

And say after a ‘roof knocking’ 10 people go up on the roof of the house?
Then you don’t strike the house.

And what if after a ‘roof knocking’ 10 people stay inside the living room?
If people were inside the house I didn’t know about it. But I don’t think that was taken into consideration [over whether or not to bomb the house].

Is it a requirement to make sure no civilians are in a structure before it’s attacked by a fighter jet?
It’s not obligatory. Say the target was [Hamas’] deputy battalion commander in Shuja’iyya, an attack would be launched if the number of civilians wasn’t too high. By too high, I mean a two-digit number.

Everything this soldier says isperfectly legal in the laws of armed conflict. What else could soldiers do to determine if civilians are in the house after leaflets, phone calls and roof-knocking? Should they ring the doorbell and ask politely to speak to the head of the household?

These examples show that Breaking the Silence is not a human rights organization. Its entire purpose is to demonize the IDF, to make it look bad even when it does nothing remotely wrong.

If only real reporters who know something about real wars would read these and write about it.

Here's an example of a "Breaking the Silence" testimony

Today, the leftist group Breaking the Silence released a report on how awful the IDF was during the Gaza war.

As usual, the stories have no context and no details, so it is difficult to know what exactly happened.

But I went to the BTS site to see testimonies from Gaza last year. Here was the first one I saw:

There were a few times where it was just too much and I had to say something. Because in two months of fighting, people make mistakes, mistakes happen. It’s our good fortune, and I mean both as a nation and as the IDF, that there are some people who know how to stand up and say, “Hang on, something bad is happening here.” I remember one incident in which there was permissiveness of sort on the part of the upper levels with regard to wanting to open fire, and it was fortunate that somebody stepped up and said something.

What was the story?
Some militant was being monitored, he had been incriminated, and he was on his way to a meeting with other militants, and on his way there he was joined by another person who started walked alongside him, and the moment their paths linked up – despite the fact that it was totally against regulations – the second guy got incriminated too, and nobody knew from where he had popped up. So you couldn’t incriminate him ‘dry.’ And in that case, there were people there who said, “Hang on, this is no good.” And in the end the strike wasn’t carried out, it wasn’t executed. What I’m trying to say is, that sometimes even the commanders up top make mistakes, and I was present during an incident where it was stopped. I can’t know if there were incidents in which it wasn’t stopped, but in my estimation there were cases in which incriminations were made against the regulations.

So someone walking next to a militant was almost accidentally killed and in the end he wasn't because someone spoke up.

Doesn't this show how horrible the IDF is?

Arguably, this shows that the IDF's rules of engagement are too permissive. Depending on the value of the target, according to the laws of armed conflict, the IDF could have killed both of them without the slightest worry about it being a war crime or even immoral.

Akiva Bigman at Mida last year looked at many more testimonies and was equally underwhelmed. Every story he read either didn't show anything very wrong, minor problems or issues that would happen any time you deal with human beings, or at worst, some problematic episodes that don't describe the context of the danger that the soldiers were in at the moment of decision.

I'm seeing other stories that are just as unimportant. But BTS and its sponsors know that most people wouldn't bother reading the stories themselves that often show the morality of the IDF, and will only read the most lurid ones that are cherry-picked for Haaretz.

If any other Western army had a similar initiative to BTS, chances are they would come out much worse.

Yet "Breaking the Silence," as with so many other NGOs, is funded by the EU with the intent to bash Israel and only Israel.

Because you've gotta start somewhere. And, apparently, when Israel is your target, you've gotta end at the same place you start.

(See also NGO-Monitor)

Another BTS post coming up next.

05/04 Links Pt1: Israel's Hamas-Abbas dilemma; How to Stop Iran? Start Talking About North Korea

From Ian:

Israel's surprising Hamas-Abbas dilemma

A correct reading of the political map indicates that the only option for ending the Hamas reign in Gaza is to let it collapse. Politically, Hamas is besieged and isolated. Egypt considers it a terrorist organization and has been blocking the Rafah crossing between the Strip and the Sinai, which is a vital lifeline for Gaza and its impoverished residents. Hamas is attempting to forge ties and obtain aid from other Arab countries, but the only country willing to do so is Qatar, and it is unclear how much longer that support will last. Turkey helps out a bit, but Hamas attempts to get assistance from Saudi Arabia and Iran have not been very successful. Ideologically, Hamas, as a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, is considered an enemy of both Tehran and Riyadh.
Hamas does not have the money to pay its 40,000 employees. This month, between 50 and 65 percent of their salaries were cut, with the minimum set at NIS1,000 (about $250). Hamas chiefs are accusing Ramallah of preventing the payment of salaries, and UN envoy Mladenov is continuing his efforts to guarantee payment for the civilian government clerks in Gaza, most of them employees of the education and health systems hired by Hamas in recent years. How long can Hamas hold on? Hard to say. What is clear for the time being is that Hamas is not angling for another war, not yet. Given the region’s instability, that, too, is a lot.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians Need Reforms, Not Elections

In an interview with Israel's Channel 2 TV station, Carter, possibly wishing to believe anything he was told, declared that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was a strong proponent of the peace process. Carter went on to claim that Mashaal has accepted the two-state solution and was in favor of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which recognizes Israel's right to exist in return for a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.
Carter's defense of Hamas comes even as Hamas and its leaders continue to talk about their plans and wishes to destroy Israel. It also coincides with Hamas's ongoing and intensive preparations for another war with Israel as they dig new tunnels and rebuild others that were destroyed in the Gaza Strip by Israel in the war less than a year ago .
Free and democratic elections are the last thing the Palestinians need now. Such elections would only pave the way for a Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority and plunge the region into chaos and violence. As long as Abbas's Fatah faction is not seen as a better alternative to Hamas, it would be too risky to ask Palestinians to head to the ballot boxes. Instead of pressuring the Palestinians to hold new elections, world leaders should be demanding accountability and transparency from the PA.
They should also be urging the Palestinian Authority to pave the way for the emergence of new leaders and get rid of all the corrupt old-guard representatives who have been in power for decades. Finally, the international community should be urging the PA to stop its campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel, which drives more Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas and other radical groups, who assume that if the Israelis are as terrible as they are told, they might as well join the group dedicated to killing them rather than to discussing peace.

John Bolton: How to Stop Iran? Start Talking About North Korea

Besides being one of the planet’s poorest, most isolated, most repressed countries, the North has been under comprehensive American sanctions since the Korean War and extensive UN sanctions since 2006, when it resumed ballistic-missile launches and first tested a nuclear device.
None of this prevented Pyongyang from progressing to the threatening levels China now assesses.
This alone should warn us that the less-comprehensive, less well-enforced sanctions against Iran could never compel it to renounce its 30-year quest for deliverable nuclear weapons. If North Korea, perennially on the brink of starvation, can become a nuclear power, Iran can easily match its fellow rogue state.
China’s new estimates should thereby compel a critical re-evaluation of the talks among Iran and the Security Council’s permanent members (and Germany).
A deal blocking Iran from proceeding quickly to nuclear weapons, whatever its specific terms, rests on two critical assumptions:
First, the United States and others must have essentially full knowledge about the current status of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.
Without such a “baseline” assessment, we cannot possibly judge the likely efficacy of a counter-proliferation agreement. If you don’t know where you start, you can hardly judge the sufficiency of the measures agreed to.
Second, following the baseline assessment, Iran must either be fully transparent about its nuclear and missile programs, or a combination of international inspectors and our intelligence agencies must be able to provide the facts necessary to detect and respond to Iranian violations.
Neither of these fundamental preconditions exists in the April 2 “framework.” This defect alone should be central to the debate if a “final” deal is ever reached.

Tel Aviv protests are a win-win for Israel haters

PreOccupied Territory has been making a series of flowcharts showing how anything Israel does can be spun against it.

The recent demonstrations in Tel Aviv seem to be a similar situation:

The Arab media has been enthusiastically reporting on the protests, happily using them s evidence that Israel is racist. (Al Jazeera, ironically, refers to the Ethiopians by the derogatory name "Falashas" while self-righteously reporting on Israeli racism.)

Funny, the only African people in Gulf countries seem to be servants.

The Jewish Press reports that the violence seems to have been instigated from outsiders who want to paint Israel as racist, and want to help it along when the police don't cooperate.

Police said Monday morning that anarchists incited protesters to violence in last night’s march in Tel Aviv against police brutality and racism undermined demonstrators’ objectives.

Protesters were armed with rocks and metal objects that they hurled at police officers, 56 of whom were injured lightly. Police arrested 43 demonstrators and hurled stunned grenades in the middle of a crowd blocking a major artery at rush-hour in Tel Aviv.

Both a senior police official and “Elazar,” who made Aliyah to Ethiopia years before the massive airlift in Operation Shlomo, told Voice of Israel radio (Reshet Bet) that the protest turned violent partly because of anarchists.

So do Israeli police only use tear gas and stun grenades against blacks and Arabs?

Of course not. Police have used water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas against haredi Jewish protesters in Israel.

So surely Israeli police are just violent in general, using tear gas at the drop of a hat?

Tell the British, who used tear gas only last week at a protest against gentrification of neighborhoods.

Tell it to Canadians, whose police recently used tear gas and rubber bullets against a student protest.

For some reason those didn't make world headlines. In fact, they didn't even make major headlines in their own countries.

But the desire to paint Israel as a racist society is irresistible to a large number of reporters.

From AFP:

Tunisia said Sunday security measures have already been taken to protect Jewish pilgrims at a religious festival next week on the island of Djerba, after Israel warned of "concrete threats".

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that Israel had learned of "concrete threats" of terror attacks against Jewish or Israeli targets in the North African country, prompting a quick denial from Tunis.

Interior Minister Najem Gharsalli told journalists in the holiday resort of Djerba, which hosts an annual pilgrimage to the Ghriba, Africa's oldest synagogue, that security forces and the army were ready.

"They are here and the security plan is in place" for the May 6-7 pilgrimage, he said.

"Tunisia is a safe country and Djerba too is a safe city. Visitors from the world over are welcome," Gharsalli said.

"What I am saying now is a response to many who cast doubt over Tunisia's security and its capacity to secure celebrations," he added.

A statement from Netanyahu's office late on Saturday said: "Information indicates that there are plans for terrorist attacks against Israelis or Jews in Tunisia" connected to the pilgrimage.

Thousands of pilgrims visit the tombs of famous rabbis for the Lag BaOmer Jewish Festival, including on Djerba island, where one of the last Jewish communities in the Arab world still lives.

Beginning 33 days after the start of the Jewish Passover festival, the Ghriba pilgrimage used to attract thousands of pilgrims from France and Israel and other tourists.

But their number fell dramatically after an April 2002 bombing blamed on Al-Qaeda that killed 21 people.

According to legend, the Ghriba synagogue was founded in 586 BC by Jews fleeing the destruction of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

Tunisian Jews now number around 1,500, compared with an estimated 100,000 when Tunisia gained independence in 1956.

The Israeli Counter-Terrorism Bureau said it was advising people against visiting Tunisia in view of the "threats".

But Gharsalli insisted that Tunisia can protect visitors "better than any other country".

The authorities have been trying to reassure foreign visitors they will be safe since 21 tourists were killed in a jihadist attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis in March.

Last year, after a major tourism campaign, Tunisia welcomed some 2500 Jews for the pilgrimage - up from only 350 the year before. Tunisia even allowed Israelis to enter the country directly, using their own passports, an unprecedented move.

The tourism industry is a major source of income for the country.

In 2013, Jewish jewelers in Djerba went on strike after a series of antisemitic attacks.

On Friday, Tunisian authorities announced that they had arrested "large numbers" of people in the southwest of the country, but denied that they were terror suspects.